How do sims look for jobs?

[gnawer 1]

Sorry if it was already discussed, I couldn't find the answer to this particular question.

 

So, what's the algorythm for sims to look for available jobs? Basically, I'm getting high traffic in my city, because sims seem to be complete idiots and prefer to commute to the opposite side of town, when there's a lot of perfectly good commercial and industrial buildings right next door.

 

Ok, I figured, let's say there's a group of sims living in a certain residential building. Maybe the game keeps track of that group, links it say to a certain office, and then that link does not change even when I build another residential building much closer to that office, because the office is already full.

 

That doesn't seems to be the case though. Let's say I isolated an apartment building and an office building, by bulldozing all roads around them. In some time, sims from the apartment building do start to work in the office building. But as soon as I return the roads, they immediately resume commuting to the far side of town. So for some reason they actively dislike the next door job even if they already have it.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Do you automatically look for the closest job in real life ? I don't think so. Or do you prefer a bugged and irrealistic approach like in SC2013 where the sims just fill every job they find when they leave home ?

[gnawer 1]

I'm not really interested in whether or not their pattern is realistic, I just want to understand it. It's a game, it does many things unrealistically.

[Turjan 1,048]

If your Sims are well-educated, they will look for a job that pays according to their education level, and that may not be available directly next to the place where they live, which may be the reason for the pattern you see. In case we see actual traffic patterns, it looks that your observation that the game likes to send all people from one building to one specific workplace, if possible, is true. Regarding changing patterns, the destination finder only runs three times per year, so you have to be patient (or use high game speed) to see the pattern change, if you made your change after it just ran.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Trying to figure out the pathfinding algorithm by observation is not exactly easy.  There are many factors that enter into where a Sim can work, but the most important one is the education quotient (EQ).  If the Sim has only an R$ EQ it can only work in I-Ag, I-D, CS$ jobs and R$$ will avoid these except as a boss, while R$$$ won't work there at all.  And so on through the hierarchy.  There are some restrictions on the population's capabilities as well to assure that there will be a balance.  If you have more than about 15% R$$$ Sims, they won't find any jobs.  Remember that a CO$$$ building will only employ a few R$$$ but several R$$ and many R$ Sims.  A big office only has a few top dogs, lots of knowledge workers and an army of clerks.

[Prophet42 1,503]

Also, keep in mind each commercial or industrial building will provide a certain number of wealth level jobs.  For example if you have a CO$$$ that provides a total of 50 jobs, 5 jobs may be R$$$, 30 jobs may be for R$$ and 15 jobs may be for R$ (that is just an example, don't get hung up on the numbers),.  Therefore, you may have a residential area with R$$$ and plenty of C$$$ buildings around but they may still have to drive a long way because of the percentage of jobs available.  A Sim will try to find the closest job available, but once it finds a job he/she tends to stay at that job even if a closer one opens up.

[gnawer 1]

If your Sims are well-educated, they will look for a job that pays according to their education level, and that may not be available directly next to the place where they live, which may be the reason for the pattern you see.

 

That makes sense, thanks.

 

I did consider the wealth ($$$), but I'm still fuzzy on the education factor, because there seems to be no way to see it directly on per-building level.

[z1 566]

Also, keep in mind each commercial or industrial building will provide a certain number of wealth level jobs.  For example if you have a CO$$$ that provides a total of 50 jobs, 5 jobs may be R$$$, 30 jobs may be for R$$ and 15 jobs may be for R$ (that is just an example, don't get hung up on the numbers),.  Therefore, you may have a residential area with R$$$ and plenty of C$$$ buildings around but they may still have to drive a long way because of the percentage of jobs available.

 

Specifically:

 

 

 

I did consider the wealth ($$$), but I'm still fuzzy on the education factor, because there seems to be no way to see it directly on per-building level.

 

You don't need to see it on a per building level, as long as you know the building type.  This chart shows which business types residential Sims of various wealth and educational levels are looking for, where education is divided into four grades, with one as the lowest.  The two columns with Agriculture add up to more than 100% because agriculture may take away from the other job types if it is present.

 

Both charts are from the Prima Guide.

[infamousjbe 593]

It might be worth noting that the above ^ stats are based on the Maxis default content.  Not all custom content is comparable to the Maxis stats. In fact, I've found quite a bit of custom content to have exaggerated stats. 

[z1 566]

These tables refer to the demand drives, which are located in SimCity_1.dat.  They aren't present in any custom content.  Custom content can (and often does) have exaggerated statistics, such as for jobs, residents, etc., but the figures in the above tables still hold.

 

The CAM demand bug came from modifying the numbers in those tables.  Unbeknownst to the CAM author at the time, if you use different versions of those tables in exemplars with the same IDs as the originals, unlike almost every other exemplar in the game, the values don't override the original - they're added to it.  It takes really tricky manipulation to get them to be overridden.  Or you can just change SimCity_1.dat.

[gnawer 1]

Thank you, these are great charts I haven't seen before. Though they do give the information on what businesses want, but not on the education of sims in a particular building. Well I guess if there's only four levels, they are easy enough to see on the color overlay.

 

I currently play the unmodded version, tried the mods a while ago, decided that I'm fine with or without them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Thank you, these are great charts I haven't seen before. Though they do give the information on what businesses want, but not on the education of sims in a particular building. Well I guess if there's only four levels, they are easy enough to see on the color overlay.

 

I currently play the unmodded version, tried the mods a while ago, decided that I'm fine with or without them.

Can't believe you can survive without the NAM traffic controller, if nothing else.  There are also several custom content bug fixes.